12,358 research outputs found

    Corporate Social Responsibility: the institutionalization of ESG

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    Understanding the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on firm performance as it relates to industries reliant on technological innovation is a complex and perpetually evolving challenge. To thoroughly investigate this topic, this dissertation will adopt an economics-based structure to address three primary hypotheses. This structure allows for each hypothesis to essentially be a standalone empirical paper, unified by an overall analysis of the nature of impact that ESG has on firm performance. The first hypothesis explores the evolution of CSR to the modern quantified iteration of ESG has led to the institutionalization and standardization of the CSR concept. The second hypothesis fills gaps in existing literature testing the relationship between firm performance and ESG by finding that the relationship is significantly positive in long-term, strategic metrics (ROA and ROIC) and that there is no correlation in short-term metrics (ROE and ROS). Finally, the third hypothesis states that if a firm has a long-term strategic ESG plan, as proxied by the publication of CSR reports, then it is more resilience to damage from controversies. This is supported by the finding that pro-ESG firms consistently fared better than their counterparts in both financial and ESG performance, even in the event of a controversy. However, firms with consistent reporting are also held to a higher standard than their nonreporting peers, suggesting a higher risk and higher reward dynamic. These findings support the theory of good management, in that long-term strategic planning is both immediately economically beneficial and serves as a means of risk management and social impact mitigation. Overall, this contributes to the literature by fillings gaps in the nature of impact that ESG has on firm performance, particularly from a management perspective

    Personalführung im heterogenen Kollegium von Grund- und Mittelschulen in Bayern

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    Personalführung bei zunehmend heterogenen Lehrkräften wird zusehends wichtiger für Schulleitung. Eine theoretische und praktische Neuorientierung in diesem bisher übersehenen Feld erscheint notwendig. Dazu werden in der Schulleitungsforschung Erkenntnisse zur differenzierenden Personalführung gesucht. In der Betriebswirtschaftslehre sowie in der Praxis von Unternehmen werden Neuerungen im Umgang mit größerer Diversität bei den Mitarbeitern analysiert. Erfahrungen aus der Praxis von Schulleitungen werden mithilfe offener Interviews ausgewertet. Nach kritischer Auswahl der Übertragungsmöglichkeiten wird eine Integration zu einem neuen Ansatz von differenzierender Personalführung versucht. Konkrete Vorschläge zur Reform der Ausbildung der Schulleitungen und zur Umsetzung in der Praxis zeigen mögliche Wege der nötigen Verbesserung auf

    The Impact of M&As on Shareholders’ Wealth: :Evidence from Greece

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    This study aims to investigate the effect of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on shareholders’ wealth. Additionally, this study investigates the impact of the economic crisis during 2007–2008 on the shareholders’ perceptions of gaining additional value from mergers and acquisitions. In this paper, a sample of 84 M&As from 2006 to 2015 in Greece are studied to investigate the effect on shareholders of bidder companies. We find significantly negative abnormal returns just before the announcement of M&A, which negatively affects the bidder firms’ value. It is also observed that after 2009 M&A cases decreased, maybe because of the crisis in Greece that changed the investors’ perception of a value-destroying event. Companies that engage in M&A activities during economic downturns tend to experience a decline in shareholder value. This could be due to various factors, such as increased uncertainty and risk associated with such activities during economic uncertainty. By understanding the potential impact of such activities on shareholder value, companies can make more informed decisions about whether and when to pursue M&A opportunities

    Planetesimal Initial Mass Functions following Diffusion Regulated Gravitational Collapse

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    The initial mass function (IMF) of planetesimals is of key importance for understanding the initial stages of planet formation, yet theoretical predictions so far have been insufficient in explaining the variety of IMFs found in simulations. Here, we connect diffusion-tidal-shear limited planetesimal formation within the framework of a Toomre-like instability in the particle mid-plane of a protoplanetary disk to an analytic prediction for the planetesimal IMF. The shape of the IMF is set by the stability parameter QpQ_\mathrm{p}, which in turn depends on the particle Stokes number, the Toomre QQ value of the gas, the local dust concentration and the local diffusivity. We compare our prediction to high-resolution numerical simulations of the streaming instability and planetesimal formation via gravitational collapse. We find that our IMF prediction agrees with numerical results, and is consistent with both the `planetesimals are born big' paradigm and the power law description commonly found in simulations.Comment: Accepted in ApJ, 16 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

    Bayesian Implications for the Primordial Black Holes from NANOGrav's Pulsar-Timing Data Using the Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves

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    Assuming that the common-spectrum process in the NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset has an origin of scalar-induced gravitational waves, we study the enhancement of primordial curvature perturbations and the mass function of primordial black holes, by performing the Bayesian parameter inference for the first time. We obtain lower limits on the spectral amplitude, i.e., A≳10−2\mathcal{A}\gtrsim10^{-2} at 95\% confidence level, when assuming the power spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations to follow a log-normal distribution function with width σ\sigma. In the case of σ→0\sigma\rightarrow0, we find that the primordial black holes with 2×10−4−10−22\times10^{-4}-10^{-2} solar mass are allowed to compose at least a fraction 10−610^{-6} of dark matter. Such a mass range is shifted to more massive regimes for larger values of σ\sigma, e.g., to a regime of 4×10−3−0.24\times10^{-3}-0.2 solar mass in the case of σ=1\sigma=1. We expect the planned gravitational-wave experiments to have their best sensitivity to A\mathcal{A} in the range of 10−410^{-4} to 10−710^{-7}, depending on the experimental setups. With this level of sensitivity, we can search for primordial black holes throughout the entire parameter space, especially in the mass range of 10−1610^{-16} to 10−1110^{-11} solar masses, where they could account for all dark matter. In addition, the importance of multi-band detector networks is emphasized to accomplish our theoretical expectation.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, version publishe

    Cultivating Agrobiodiversity in the U.S.: Barriers and Bridges at Multiple Scales

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    The diversity of crops grown in the United States (U.S.) is declining, causing agricultural landscapes to become more and more simplified. This trend is concerning for the loss of important plant, insect, and animal species, as well as the pollution and degradation of our environment. Through three separate but related studies, this dissertation addresses the need to increase the diversity of these agricultural landscapes in the U.S., particularly through diversifying the type and number of crops grown. The first study uses multiple, openly accessible datasets related to agricultural land use and policies to document and visualize change over recent decades. Through this, I show that U.S. agriculture has gradually become more specialized in the crops grown, crop production is heavily concentrated in certain areas, and crop diversity is continuing to decline. Meanwhile, federal agricultural policy, while having become more influential over how U.S. agriculture operates, incentivizes this specialization. The second study uses nonlinear statistical modeling to identify and compare social, political, and ecological factors that best predict crop diversity across nine regions in the U.S. Factors of climate, prior land use, and farm inputs best predict diversity across regions, but regions show key differences in how factors are important, indicating that patterns at the regional scale constrain and enable further diversification. Finally, the third study relied on interviews with farmers and key informants in southern Idaho’s Magic Valley – a cluster of eight counties that is known to be agriculturally diverse. Interviews gauge what farmers are currently doing to manage crop diversity (the present) and how they imagine alternative landscapes (the imaginary). We found that farmers in the Magic Valley manage current diversity mainly through cover cropping and diverse crop rotations, but daily struggles and political barriers make experimenting with and imagining alternative landscapes difficult and unlikely to occur. Together, these three studies provide an integrated view of how and why U.S. agriculture landscapes simplify or diversify, as well as the barriers and bridges such pathways of diversification

    Micro-Prudential Regulation and Loan Monitoring

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    We evaluate the value of loan monitoring systems for a bank controlled by a micro-prudential regulator. We investigate dynamic systems (an information channel that generates information flow about quality) and static systems (where the lender receives a single signal about loan quality). We find that dynamic systems carry a regulatory charge that dominates the benefit of the systems and are therefore unprofitable, whereas static systems have positive value. Specifically, lenders can profitably dismantle their dynamic systems and instead turn to static monitoring systems. The model reveals, therefore, a potential weakness of micro-prudential regulation

    STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT IN SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING IN INDONESIA

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    This research aims to understand the ways the preparers of sustainability reports in Indonesia embed stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting. This research seeks to understand the perceived role of stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting and examines whether the report preparers decouple their stakeholder engagement disclosures from the actual practices. The neo-institutional theory is used to illuminate the companies’ non-conformity responses to institutional influences. This research utilises mixed methods by deploying questionnaires, sustainability reports and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire survey was analysed using descriptive statistics. The interviews were conducted face-to-face and analysed using thematic analysis. Content analysis of stakeholder engagement disclosures was also undertaken on the 2007 to 2018 sustainability reports issued by the companies participating in the interviews. The findings of this research reveal that the report preparers attempt to embed stakeholder engagement in the companies’ sustainability reporting in response to coercive, normative and mimetic influences. However, stakeholder engagement is loosely embedded as a result of contextualising the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s conception of stakeholder engagement into Indonesia’s local contexts. Stakeholder engagement is perceived as having important roles in mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes and materiality assessment to define the report content. External stakeholders are engaged more inclusively in the former whereas internal stakeholders take control of the latter. It is not evident that the report preparers in Indonesia decouple stakeholder engagement disclosures from practices. However, the ways in which the companies practise their stakeholder engagement (means) deviate from the goals of stakeholder engagement suggested by the GRI’s principles for defining the report content (ends), known as the means-ends decoupling. The report preparers in Indonesia accept the GRI’s concept by meeting the suggested indicators, but unintentionally overlook the GRI’s principles that are required to be implemented as a new institution, rather than intentionally avoiding them. The main contribution of this research to the literature is that it provides insights into the need to embed stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting in an integral way, including by translating the GRI’s global conception into local context. This research also provides insights into the presumption that ‘companies report the practice’ of stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting—as suggested by the GRI and the extant literature. Just because the companies report the practice (means) by making reference to the GRI, it does not necessarily follow that the companies have conformed to the goals of stakeholder engagement suggested by the GRI’s principles for defining the report content (ends). Taking into full consideration Indonesia’s politicoeconomic, sociocultural and legal contexts, which can be dissimilar to other local contexts, this research contributes to an understanding of decoupling, especially the means-ends decoupling, which tends to be unintentional in the companies’ non-acquiescent response to institutional influences. The decoupling indicates that the report preparers consider the GRI’s stakeholder engagement indicators as technical prescriptions leading to box-ticking activities, rather than being thoroughly understood and implemented as a new institution. Besides, this research offers a practical contribution in that the companies’ sustainability reporting consultants could shepherd their clients’ stakeholder engagement, guided by the GRI standards (previously called guidelines), to go beyond merely meeting the GRI indicators and producing ‘nice to read’ sustainability reports

    Testing multiflavored ULDM models with SPARC

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    We perform maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) for single and double flavor ultralight dark matter (ULDM) models using the Spitzer Photometry and Accurate Rotation Curves (SPARC) database. These estimates are compared to MLEs for several commonly used cold dark matter (CDM) models. By comparing various CDM models we find, in agreement with previous studies, that the Burkert and Einasto models tend to perform better than other commonly used CDM models. We focus on comparisons between the Einasto and ULDM models and analyze cases for which the ULDM particle masses are: free to vary; and fixed. For each of these analyses, we perform fits assuming the soliton and halo profiles are: summed together; and matched at a given radius. When we let the particle masses vary, we find a negligible preference for any particular range of particle masses, within 10−25 eV≤m≤10−19 eV10^{-25}\,\text{eV}\leq m\leq10^{-19}\,\text{eV}, when assuming the summed models. For the matched models, however, we find that almost all galaxies prefer particles masses in the range 10−23 eV≲m≲10−20 eV10^{-23}\,\text{eV}\lesssim m\lesssim10^{-20}\,\text{eV}. For both double flavor models we find that most galaxies prefer approximately equal particle masses. We find that the summed models give much larger variances with respect to the soliton-halo (SH) relation than the matched models. When the particle masses are fixed, the matched models give median and mean soliton and halo values that fall within the SH relation bounds, for most masses scanned. When the particle masses are fixed in the fitting procedure, we find the best fit results for the particle mass m=10−20.5 eVm=10^{-20.5}\,\text{eV} (for the single flavor models) and m1=10−20.5 eVm_1=10^{-20.5}\,\text{eV}, m2=10−20.2 eVm_2=10^{-20.2}\,\text{eV} for the double flavor, matched model. We discuss how our study will be furthered using a reinforcement learning algorithm.Comment: 36 pages, 25 figures, 2 appendice
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